Dana Jones, opinion editor
Suicide is an act the most people pay attention to. It reaches headlines and gets immediate attention. What is not discussed is the day-to-day struggle of people with mental illnesses.
Regular conversations about mental health are usually dodged because the listener feels uncomfortable or the speaker feeling guilty for emotionally dumping on someone.
This stigma, however, needs to be a part of our ongoing discussions. People who are struggling with mental illness need to feel that they can open up and be vulnerable, especially with those they are closest to.
Whether it is depression, anxiety, stress, bipolar disorder, or what have you, it has to be discussed, in as open a forum as possible. Otherwise, we will continue to see tragedies.
Mia Valdez, assistant opinion editor
Conversations about mental health often end quickly and unsatisfactorily. We stop talking about mental illness for the same reason that we start: It’s a combination of obligation and respect for those who have most recently been affected by something scary.
September is National Suicide Prevention Month, which indicates that as a society, we are aware of some responsibility we owe to one another in our journey toward stability and mental fitness.
What gets lost in the conversation, however, is mental health. Our conversations about mental health leave many students wanting more. It is not only about extending the conversations but about improving their quality overall.
People want to be mentally healthy — a journey with a collective effort to discuss and normalize ways to achieve that goal might be a good start.
Anusheh Siddique, senior staff writer
For college-age adults, suicide has become the second most prevalent cause of death.
This statistic has incited a movement that seeks to institutionalize the significance of mental health, but it seems the implications of suicide are shadowed by the momentousness of taking one’s own life.
The taboo surrounding mental health has made seeking help increasingly inopportune. The anxiety, depression and stresses of college have become heartbreakingly recurrent throughout campuses. This conversation seems to be revived each time such a heartbreaking instance takes place, but the infamy does not last.
It seems the notoriety of suicide and its causes are disinterred faster than the victim of them.
opinion @thedailycougar.com
“It reaches headlines and gets immediate attention.” Well, that isn’t usually true, not among respectable news organizations. While the Daily Cougar may be quick to jump on and publish the story of a suicide, with bloody photos attached, this is the exception in journalism, not the rule. There are many studies showing why reporting on individual suicides, particularly in a sensationalist way, is bad for other people in a similar situation. The Daily Cougar may be doing actual harm when you report the way you did last week. You should really have an internal conversation about how you report suicides, or at lease use the guidelines that are widely available. https://afsp.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/recommendations.pdf
Also, this low effort opinion piece is about as useful as the comments section of a Reddit thread. The least you could do is add a link to some actual resources.